I think part of the reason that I've grown a little exhausted with the idea that women must live in a constant state of terror is like...so I was in high school the first time someone catcalled me. I'd been walking down a busy street with my friend in broad daylight, and a car full of college guys drove past and yelled at us, and I immediately turned to look at them and shouted "FUCK OFF!!" which felt great! But my friend freaked out, and kept calling me an idiot, and telling me those guys were gonna turn around and come after us, that it's never okay to tell a dude to fuck off, and I was confused...but just nodded and I stopped doing that.
Thing is, nothing happened to us. The dudes didn't turn around, they didn't come after us, it was a moment and then it was over and we were fine. It WAS okay to do that. We were fine.
And I just have to wonder how much of this fear is rational and how much of it is self imposed and how much of it keeps us trapped under men, too petrified to fight back. Because I've been followed home multiple times by men, been catcalled, all that, and when my reaction has been open hostility most of the men get scared and fuck off. I had two guys start following me once when I was on a "I'm angry and need to blow off steam" walk at night after a fight with my roommates and they started after me going "hey babe where you going?" and again, I was having a bad night and was so angry I could barely think, so I just turned around and said "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE" in the loudest, firmest voice I could and they both went "damn okay" and left. I was a cute, at the time fem woman who was 5'1" and 125lbs and I scared them off.
Given all that...I just wonder, you know, why we're told we shouldn't make a scene or fight back, and I start to wonder how much of that is justified and how much of it exists to help men get away with being creeps. They want us afraid, that's why they do that, it's not about attraction, it's a power trip. So...why give them what they want? Why enable this nonsense? Acting meek and scared isn't going to stop them, it mostly emboldens them bcs it's what they want, so why act meek and scared? Why not claw and bite and scream? That actually might stop them, but you'll never know if you refuse to try. I know for a lot of us it's a reflex at this point, but it's not a reflex I or any of us were born with. It was taught to us by other women. And I'm starting to think that maybe...maybe we don't have to be scared...and maybe we aren't the ones who benefit from our fear.
The men do. Because if we just sit there and cry while they hurt us and never try to fight back, they never have any incentive to stop. And it does embolden them, if they think women are all weak babies who will cry and freak out when they stand too close to us then they will do it more because there's nothing telling them they won't get away with it. A lot of radfems(and those buying into the ideology either intentionally or accidentally) claim to be mean feminists who don't care about men's feelings bcs men are all whiny little babies...but none of you ever seem to do anything other than claim that men are stronger than women in ever instance and that we should live in constant fear of every single man we encounter. Forgive me for wondering if maybe that's just what the men want us to be doing and thinking that there's a different, better way.
Dealing with my OCD has also made me think about this a lot more, as I'm not really allowed to believe it's normal or okay for me to be afraid all the time, of anything. Indulging in my phobias makes them worse, so for me it is better to scream at these men to fuck off, to be rude, fight back. That's not going to reinforce my fears, so it's what I need to do. If I freak out every single time a man and I are alone together eventually I'm not gonna be able to leave my house, and that is not unique to OCD. We all have to stop thinking that our fear is mandatory, and it helps me at least that in my OCD therapy I have gotten over some of my phobias. I can stop letting my feelings control me. I do not have to be afraid, and being afraid won't stop bad things from happening, so fear is useless to me. Useless to me, but extremely beneficial to the powers that be. Fear even makes us less safe imo. If we convince ourselves that all men are dangerous monsters and women SHOULD be afraid of them because ANY of them could EASILY harm us if they wanted...aren't we convincing ourselves that trying to fight the patriarchy at all is useless? Aren't we depriving ourselves of the self-efficacy we were born with in favor of learned helplessness? Aren't we saying that women being trapped at home, never leaving alone, never existing near a man they don't know is somehow the way society must function and not a sign of profound oppression. Women have always had to fight to be where the men are because they want us too afraid to do that, when did we forget that?
And really, who benefits from us thinking we can't fight back? Who benefits from our response to harassment and violence being cowering and sobbing and terror and avoidance? That's what they want, they want us to cower and sob and beg for them to stop or never exist in their spaces our of fear, that's why they're doing it! And given that in my experience if you're willing to try you can scare a man into leaving you the fuck alone, it really is extremely important for us as women to ask who benefits from our fear, our denial of the power we hold, both for our own sake and the sake of others(marginalized men, masculine women, ect.). Because I'm not convinced it's us.
I don't blame anyone for instinctually reacting with fear, that's normal, but it's not a requirement. You can learn to not be scared of anything, even men! You can learn to not care when men say weird shit to you, you can learn to hurt men, fight back, scare them off, and then you can just live your life without it being ruled by terror. Back when I was a teenager we talked up women's self-defense classes, we fought to TAKE back the night, not ask nicely for it, not surrender it, but take it back from those who would deny it to us. Now most feminists think women going out at night at all is a death sentence when it isn't, it never has been, and it will never get any safer for us if we avoid it altogether.
I really do think this radfem-adjacent idea that all women MUST live in terror of ALL men 100% of the time benefits the powers that be far more than it benefits us. Shitty men don't want us around, they don't want us to feel like we're free to live our lives as we please, they benefit from your being too scared to leave your house at night. From you not getting in that elevator. From you restricting your existence and twisting it in the hope of avoiding men forever while they just live. Again, we are not the ones who benefit from us being this scared, it doesn't protect us anyway! We also can just live, they want us to think we can't.
Idk, I think I'd personally rather live my life not ruled by an irrational fear of men that does nothing to protect me and does everything to benefit shitty men. I want to be the kind of person who screams at catcallers to fuck off. I want to intimidate creeps who think women are easy targets. I don't want them to walk away satisfied that they scared me, I want them to walk away humiliated that the woman they thought was meek had her teeth at their throat the second they opened their fucking mouths. I want to be the last woman they fuck with, and I never want to come to accept the lie that men are always stronger than me, and that there is nothing I can do but run and cry when they decide to fuck with me for fun. Should I have a daughter I want her to know she does not have to sit back and let men creep her out bcs as a girl she's too weak to fight back. That used to be the stance of most women. I don't know what happened, but I know it's bad for us. I just wish people could see that. See what denying yourself your self-efficacy actually does to you, to your life. See that it's better for creeps to not get what they want. See that you do not have to be afraid.
What they want is your fear, what they won't tell you is that you do not have to be afraid. Your fear makes you scared to fight back, and most of them aren't ready to actually get violent with a woman who will make a scene and fight back, so by reacting with fear they get what they want, but reacting with anger and aggression will usually scare them off. Maybe we could start telling ourselves that, instead of reinforcing the idea that we are powerless prey who must be terrified 24/7 until it becomes true.
Worth thinking about, at least. For me, if they want me to be afraid I will make it my life's mission to never give them the satisfaction. Men don't get to control what I do, where I go, or the kind of person I am, and the only way to live like that that is to believe I hold more power than they want me to know.
You wanna be the daughters of the witches they couldn't burn? The heirs of the mean lesbian title? Get up off the floor and use those boots to kick some teeth in. Fear ain't getting us anywhere, but I believe those men who followed me that I screamed at thought twice about trying that shit again. Let's start screaming.
I used to take karate classes, twice a week for ten years. I had two sensei's, and while one of them is a story in and of himself, I want to talk about my other sensei.
She taught at two dojo's. Mine was over an hour's drive for her, and she made that drive twice a week as well. She also volunteered to teach women's self-defense classes on weekends. I will never know why she chose to do this, but I remember overhearing my parents speculating that a family member of hers must have been assaulted, for her to be so dedicated to this.
I have no idea if they were right or if they just couldn't fathom why someone would do so much if it wasn't personal.
Nevertheless, I will always remember what she taught me at one of her self-defense classes.
She set up an example. If a man next to you on a bus pulls out his dick, what do you do?
No one answered.
You start yelling, she said. You, very loudly, yell "what are you doing?"
You draw attention. You treat it as exactly as bad as it is. You don't suffer in silence.
Because that's how it continues. Because that makes it more dangerous. Appeasing an abuser doesn't make it end. It is quite literally more dangerous to stay silent.
Get attention. Fight back. Yell. Take a self-defense class, and strike with the palm of your hand. Knives and pepper spray have a high likelihood of hurting yourself in the process. Don't tuck your thumbs inside your fists; that's how you break them.
Don't let harm pass by in silence.
